


Suspended (just waiting for a line)

by Mizzy



Category: Once Upon a Time (2011)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-11-13
Updated: 2011-11-13
Packaged: 2017-10-26 01:09:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,012
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/276886
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mizzy/pseuds/Mizzy
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Henry has a character in mind to bring one step closer to their happy ending. Emma helps him, because she's still trying to figure this fairytale business out for herself.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Suspended (just waiting for a line)

( _Once upon a time, there was a girl named Emma. And, one day at a time, she started to believe something completely crazy._ )

 

#

  
Emma's a light sleeper.

She puts this down as one of the inevitable casualties of her job. Being a bounty hunter means sometimes only being able to sleep for an hour at a time, hunched over a radio tuned to the police frequencies, and hyped up on enough caffeine to make an entire small town restless.

There's probably a great irony in the fact that despite giving her child up for adoption, she's still left with the sleeping pattern of a new mother, but Emma's an expert in denial if nothing else.

Wakefulness comes this particular moment with a measure of that denial and an equal measure of reluctance. The denial is in the form of _if I'm not awake, I don't have to deal with who I know has woken me up this time_ and the reluctance is in the form of _like I have any resistance when it comes to him, but if I pretend I do, maybe he won't be so attached?_ Then again, she's starting to suspect it's not _his_ attachment to _her_ that's going to be the problem here—another point to add to her column of denial, then.

Emma snaps open both eyes, because it's better than lying there and _thinking_ , and squints at Henry's small, eager face.

"Kid," she manages to say, even though she needs something to speak properly in the morning—her jobs means she can kick _ass_ at any time of the day, but speaking like a human's not always a requirement, "I'm pretty sure this is a felony."

"It's not breaking and entering," Henry says, way too cheerfully, "not the _breaking_ part, anyway. I know where Miss. B keeps her spare key. The entering part's probably right, though."

He jumps up onto the end of the bed, swinging his small legs, and Emma shoves away both the denial and—reluctantly—the reluctance, and switches to resignation. She is awake and this _is_ happening. There's a word for this, and it might be "alas" or it might be just plain "urgh."

"And what about you _being grounded_?" Emma arches an eyebrow, pulling the covers up to her chin. Henry makes her feel exposed, vulnerable, like she's walking around with all her faults and flaws on show. It's not his fault. It would have perhaps been easier on her, if she had faked sleep; but then Henry might start telling her _Sleeping Beauty_ was one of her relatives. Or that other one, the princess with the mattresses and the pea, and Emma always _did_ know when she was sleeping on something awkward-

This place was getting to her, and Henry was still not answering. Considering he'd clearly inherited her quick tongue and smart-alecky automatic answers, it meant one thing.

"Don't bother thinking up a lie." She drops the covers, because she hasn't brought pyjamas to Storybrooke and sleeps in yesterday's clothes, so she's decent and tired of showing her many weaknesses to Henry.

"I wasn't going to-"

"Seriously," Emma says, flatly, "I wasn't kidding about the lie thing."

Henry tries to look innocent a moment longer, but then he shrugs. Emma gets to her feet, and lunges for the sink, grabbing for her toothbrush. "So you going to tell me why you're here?"

"I need your help," Henry says, in a patently patient tone, like he thinks she's being slow. Emma rankles at it, and brushes her teeth harder to cover up the urge to say something, because it would just be redirected rage at the fact that being patronised by her own kid was something _adoption_ was supposed to have eradicated from her life.

"And where does your mother think you are?"

"You know where I am," Henry says, promptly. Emma levels him a glare accompanied with one raised eyebrow through the cracked mirror above the small sink, and he rolls his eyes. "Regina thinks I'm in bed. I made a fake me with pillows and a looped track of me crying."

Emma turns at that. " _What_?"

"A recorded sound track of me crying," Henry says, hopping off the bed and wandering across the floorboards to where Emma's bag is lying on the low armchair in the room. "I made it a couple of years ago. She doesn't know what to do when I'm crying in bed, so she leaves me alone. I put fresh batteries in my iPod speaker. I've got three hours at least before Regina comes looking for me."

"Your _mom_ ," Emma corrects, and if she spits out her toothpaste at that point, hey, it's just coincidental timing and not any reflection on her body's part on how even _thinking_ of Regina makes her feel.

Henry sighs. "I can probably try and deal with this on my own, but it's pretty dark out this morning. I might look fragile and vulnerable out on the streets on my own." He reaches for some of her things, displaying Emma's unconscious habit of always having to _touch_ things, and thinks better of it, turning to her. "If this fairytale thing _is_ real, I could walk by Red Riding Hood's wolf. Or the witch from Hansel and Gretel. Or the Snow Queen-"

"Why don't we go get breakfast, and you can tell me why I'll be getting in trouble with the town mayor this time," Emma says, shrugging on her jacket.

Henry smiles. "Pancakes?"

Emma's about to say, "We'll see," but that sounds too much like something a mom would say and she needs to not _be_ that person. She needs to be able to walk away at the end of the day. "Let's get the most sugary ones we can find," she opts for.

Henry pauses, and looks up at her, completely askance. "Do you know what that does to your _teeth_?" he demands.

Emma ushers him out of her room, nudging him towards the exit. "How sure _are_ you that you're my kid?"

Henry just laughs and leads the way.

#

( _So Emma has the oddest mentor, a dwarf or a fairy, and he has all these plans for her. So many plans that Emma'_ _s dizzy. In her Kingdom of Denial, these plans are impossible and insane. The mentor, short but wise, tells her:_ Believe, believe, believe. Clap if you believe. _Believe_ and you will believe. That's the only way to a happy ending, that's the only, only way _._ )

#

  
Henry makes a sound and ducks to the ground when they pass the café that Emma's been frequenting, purely for the fact that a) it's the nearest one; b) sometimes Sheriff Graham is there and she likes being visible _not_ committing crimes in front of local law enforcement and he's already gotten the wrong idea of her several times now; c) the food's really good, _homely_ and d) Regina hasn't found a way to ban her from it yet.

It's only a matter of time.

Emma lingers by the window, wondering what's elicited the spooked reaction from Henry. Or, more precisely, _who_ has elicited the reaction. It doesn't take her long—Emma has an eye for trouble. It's the doctor from the hospital, the one who apparently spent half a first date with Mary staring at Ruby's ass. The one who blatantly _lied_ to Emma's face.

She glares at him, and hurries on. Henry scrambles to his feet at the other side of the café, looking back at the window with dislike once they're a couple of buildings away.

They hit the convenience store, going for the classy purchase of Coke and Twinkies, and head out to Henry's castle. It's out of the way of most people, and the quietest place Emma's found so far to talk with him. They're silent as they sit on the edge, toasting each other with the soda cans and eating the Twinkies the same way—nibbling off the edge and licking out of the middle. Emma shivers when she sees him eating it like that.

"Twinkies don't have any calories in them," Henry says. "Marlene told me."

"Marlene?"

"Mm-hmm," Henry agrees, finishing his Twinkie and carefully folding the wrapper, something Henry _definitely_ didn't inherit from her. Emma crumples her own wrapper and throws it into the brown bag from the store in amongst the other whole Twinkies, and Henry wrinkles his nose in disapproval. "She's mom's maid. Sometimes she cooks for me, and tells me stories."

"And who's Marlene," Emma says, doing her best not to roll her eyes, "from the book?"

"Maid Maleen," Henry says, in a solemn tone. "She was locked in a tower for seven years with her servants without much food, as punishment for refusing to marry anyone but her true love. Marlene eats a lot. I think the witch has given her an appetite to make her forget what she's really longing for."

"Your imagination-" Emma starts, meaning it as a compliment. Henry looks disappointed suddenly, and Emma looks out at the horizon, mentally back-pedalling as quickly as she can. "Your imagination's kind. Are you sure she's not... the witch from Hansel and Gretel, wanting to eat children but having to make do with... sugary junk food snacks?"

"You _are_ starting to believe," Henry says, joyfully, clapping his hands together. "I _knew_ it."

"I-" Emma doesn't quite know how to say what she's feeling, because _feelings_ , they were always the source of trouble. Always the reason she was able to find her marks, because they had feelings for something other than themselves, feelings that made a trail for her to follow. "I believe in _you_."

"Well, believe me when I say I need help with something." Henry pulls his feet up from dangling over the edge and gets to his knees, so he's looking Emma directly in the face at eye level. She looks back, unblinking, trying to show him that he's earned her respect.

"With what?"

"My friend Rachel," Henry says.

"I thought you didn't have many friends," Emma says, frowning a little, because Henry's psych file—the little she's seen—indicates Henry is a loner, mostly isolated at school. It fits into his fairy tale theory—if Henry isn't an original character from the book, of _course_ the others will subconsciously feel he didn't fit in, and since when has Emma been taking this theory so _seriously_?

 _Since you saw your possible mom believe,_ Emma realises, with a slow curl of _something_ in her gut. Wonder and fear at Henry reacting the same to her, she thinks, and feels queasy at the power. It was sort of the plan, to get Henry to believe she _believed_ , to get the story _over_ so Henry could move on with his adopted mom and Emma could have her _life_ back. But having the plan, and realising the emotional impact _of_ the plan on Henry were two different things.

Emma hopes she has the strength to endure the consequence of the plan as well as the events in-between.

"She's not my friend at school," Henry says, as if this clarification clears everything up. "I think she would be if she was _at_ school."

"O... kay?"

"She has alopecious," Henry says, frowning. "Her hair all fell out."

"Alopecia," Emma says, and Henry nods at the correction.

"And she got really scared at what people think of her, so she got too upset to come to school. She just stays up in her room, watching out the window." Henry crouches down onto the wooden platform again, looking upset. "I know it's just the curse. This time she's been trapped in her tower without any hair to climb down on, and-"

"Back up there," Emma says, "you think your friend Rachel is _Rapunzel_?"

Henry quirks one eyebrow at her. Emma knows that reaction. She _invented_ that reaction. "Everyone's been set as far away from their happy endings as possible," he says, very rationally, considering the subject matter. "Can you think of a worse situation for Rapunzel?"

"I guess I hadn't thought about it."

"That's a good thing," Henry decides. "Good thoughts are always the way to deal with an evil queen."

"I'm not good," Emma says, automatically. Henry looks dismissive, and Emma shakes her head, and puts a finger under his chin, making him look at her. "I'm not. Henry, I make mistakes in my life. A lot of mistakes. I don't play well with others and I gave my only kid up for _adoption_ -"

"Because you thought you were giving me my best chance," Henry says, stubborn, his eyes narrowing.

"Because I was selfish and _scared_ ," Emma says. "I wouldn't have been a good mother to you because I'm not a 100% good person. The sooner you realise this, the happier you might be with your life in Storybrooke."

Henry shakes her hand away and looks dismissive, and then looks up at her. "Maybe that's what you need. Maybe that's what we need to bring her down. Someone good enough to fight, but... with enough knowledge of what it might be like to be dark."

In the early morning light, Henry looks almost as fictional as the story he thinks is real, and Emma pinches her leg unconsciously, to make sure it's not a dream.

She doesn't wake. Besides, if Henry's right, Storybrooke's more like a nightmare.

Emma swallows down the lump in her throat. "What do you want to do?"

He tells her.

Emma stares.

" _What_?"

#

(Believe _, the mentor says, again and again. Maybe he'_ _s a pixie._ What happens if I believe? _Emma wants to know._ Why, _laughs the mentor_ , all your dreams come true, and we get a happy ending! _Emma closes her eyes and stops listening to the doubts and starts to believe-)_

 __#

  
"I can't believe you think _this_ is a viable option," Emma grunts, halfway down the stairs. For a tranquilized pre-teen girl, Rachel McWhirter is surprisingly heavy. Henry hovers close behind her, chivvying her on.

"Come on, her mom gets back from nightshift in thirty minutes, and her dad'll wake up before that," Henry whispers. Emma shuffles the weight in her arms.

"Are you sure she's going to stay asleep 'til her mom gets home?"

" _Positive_. I sneak in her window and read to her sometimes."

"You _what_?" Emma hisses, raising her voice above her rough whisper.

"I climb up the fire escape. You can shout at me later. _Move_."

"We're going to have a talk about your expectations of other people _and_ about your early morning escapades," Emma says, but she hurries up anyway. It's a reasonable plan if she discounts the number of felonies involved. It's as she's tried to reassure Henry—their big plan to stop the curse can't be done _all at once_. It all has to be little steps.

This is a little step.

Emma lies the girl down on one of the large couches in the McWhirter's main sitting room, and finds a blanket on one of the sideboards. Henry helps cover Rachel with it, and they leave out of the kitchen window.

They hurry like someone's after them, even though this part of town is nearly empty at this hour of the morning. Emma steers Henry in the direction of his house, and he sighs, but follows along next to her.

"It's just a little step," Henry says, keeping pace with her, and he's looking ahead, so Emma can't help the smile at him using her terminology. "She's not left the third floor for so long. If she sees she's okay on the _first_ floor, that's so much closer to the front door. That's one step away from the absolute worst the curse could throw at her."

They turn a corner. Regina's house is in the distance, the broken apple tree the only thing marring its perfect appearance. A sign that if this is a war, then it's not an unwinnable one.

Emma wants to say she's proud of him, but it's much too close to what a real mom would say. "Maybe your next great plan can break less laws," she says, but she makes an error on her toning, and it sounds like _I'm so proud of you_ to both of them.

Henry smiles, his eyes crinkling in the way Emma knows her face crinkles in the rare occasion she smiles. _I'm proud of you_ is okay if it slips out. The _I love you_ that lingers underneath, real and painful, is much more dangerous. She swallows that down and looks stern.

"Go," she says, "before she catches you and tans _my_ hide."

Henry smiles at her like she's said _I love you_ anyway, and Emma doesn't say anything as he runs back into the house, sneaking in through a first floor window, and she swallows the annoyance at that and walks away from him.

When she does this for real, leaves Storybrooke, leaves _Henry_ , it's going to be much harder than this, traversing Storybrooke's dawn-damp sidewalks. But Emma's strong, and she knows how to accomplish anything she sets her mind to.

One step at a time solves any problem, after all. Fact _or_ fiction.

#

 _(- and she wakes up from the story in her dream. She'_ _s always been a light sleeper._

 _A couple of days later, Mary comes home full of glee, rabbiting on about how a girl_ ' _s come to her class, a girl called Rachel, who had alopecia and now her hair is growing back along with her confidence for life._

 _Emma swallows down the joy that bubbles through her, hot and unrestrained. Happy endings mean people being happy, and the truth? The truth is that Emma doesn't_   
_know what she would even do with being happy. It'_ _s as alien to her as forgiveness is to Regina._

 _Or maybe Henry'_ _s right about there being a curse, and_ that's _the real curse, because what could be more horrible than the fear of being truly happy? Not just fearing something once upon a time, but fearing something over and over and over._

 _No end.)_


End file.
